Winners And Losers In Sports Last Week

Stanley Cup Finals: Detroit Leads 2-0
Winners: Red Wings, my friend Googs, the downtrodden people of Detroit that we were all supposed to support during the NCAA tourney but apparently don't need to worry about anymore since we remembered that Detroit wins the Cup every other year and they don't care about any other sport anyway.
Losers: NBC (Did you know this series is on NBC? No one else does either.), the NHL (the Golden Boy is getting crushed by a faceless red blob)

Rafael Nadal Loses At French Open
Winners: Roger Federer, Captain Fist Pump (aka Andy Murray)
Losers: Fans of Federer-Nadal epics,

Rachel Alexandra Will Not Race In The Belmont Stakes
Winners: People who don't like horse racing and want it to go away
Losers: the Sport of Kings (not only is there no Triple Crown chase, but now there is no Derby/Preakness winner rivalry), whoever is airing the Belmont this weekend

Manny Ramirez Will Be Voted Into All-Star Game (thanks to all this press)
Winners: Manny Ramirez, wig makers, hypodermic needle makers
Losers: Baseball ("we kinda have rules in place to condemn steroid use, but not really"), Raul Ibanez (by far the best overall outfielder in baseball right now, won't be voted in for sure...but will be there).

NBA Finals: Lakers vs. Magic
Winners: Basketball fans (Kobe-LeBron would have been cool, but could you really have watched five or six more games of the Cavs lining up all 11 other players on the bench and watching LeBron hold the ball till there were 5-seconds on the shot clock before making a move?), Adidas (they need to make a commercial where Dwight Howard is the the person holding the strings on those Kobe and LeBron puppets)
Losers: The NBA, Nike, the Lakers (home court: yes, but it is a worse matchup), Cavs fans (sure, he'll still stay in Cleveland with all the help they've managed to get for him over the years...of course!)

Charles Barkley Swearing On The Air
Winners: Fans of the English language because maybe he'll finally be fired
Losers: TNT (the fine can be as high as $500,000 thanks to Janet Jackson's boob)

The Yankees Are Back On Top Of The AL East For The First Time In Two Years
Winners: The Yankees, fans
Losers: Society

College World Series Freakish Box Scores
Winners: Florida State, Texas, fans of amazing hitting, fans of amazing pitching
Losers: Ohio State (lost 37-6...in baseball), BC (lost 3-2 in a 25 inning game that featured 28 consecutive batters being retired)

Soccer Team Beats Other Soccer Team
Winners: Fans of whichever team won that big game last week
Losers: Bar-hopping fans of the team that won who were subsequently crashed into by a bus driver who was angry with them because he is a fan of the other team

Some Kid Won A Spelling Bee
Winners: No one
Losers: Everyone who watches this every year and is subjected to not only a freaking spelling bee, but also the desperate, clumsy, and obnoxious phony mannerisms and attention grabs by these painfully socially awkward young people

Simona Halep Is Getting A Breast Reduction To Help Her Tennis Career
Winners: No one
Losers: Society

Donald Sterling To Be Honored By NAACP For Longtime Help Of Minority Youth
Winners: Donald Sterling, minority youth
Losers: Elgin Baylor (who is suing Sterling for wrongful termination in part because he claims Sterling is a racist), socially conscious people who try to avoid using archaic and offensive racial epithets by accident but still have to say "colored people" because of the NAACP

Clippers Win NBA Draft Lottery
Winners: The Clippers, fans (all 4 of us)
Losers: Blake Griffin

[Insert Uggla-Ugly Pun Here]

Three hours into the player introductions for last night's All Star game, we should have realized that we were in for a long night. I am not sure if the introductions were longer, more painful and less necessary than that "Call Your Shot" promotion right before the finals of the Home Run Derby, so we will call it a tie.

Fox/Major League Baseball trotted out anywhere from three to fifteen Hall of Famers at each position and introduced them as well as the current players. I took a nap about a half hour into it and woke up when they got to third base and introduced Phil Rizzuto. I thought they were going to start naming all of the dead Hall of Famers. And speaking of dead guys, why was Rizzuto (who is a ballplayer, not a word) the only one named? If I was Babe Ruth's, or Roger Maris', or Mickey Mantle's ghost, I would be haunting Joe Buck's house so bad right now.

The funny thing was that Buck's dramatic scripted intro for the intro stated that he was going to name the "living immortals." I got a kick out of this because A: Rizzuto is not living (not that I am mocking him for being dead, I just don't see how he is a "living immortal" and B: can there be such a thing as a "dead immortal"? I mean being immortal seems like it pretty much eliminates death, being that it means "not dead."

Also during the intros, Josh Hamilton was called, "a hero last night in the Derby," and while that is completely true, if I was Justin (or Jason) Morneau, I'd be pissed.

Buck's painfully scripted and rehearsed moments did not go well for him. At one point, while fawning over Yankee Stadium, he called it "our Coliseum." I couldn't help but think that the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum is our Coliseum, being that it is slightly older than Yankee stadium and is, you know, called the "Coliseum." This was the line that Buck trotted out when the game was seemingly about to end: Grady Sizemore at bat, bases loaded, no outs, bottom of the 10th. The NL then put on a defensive exhibition (thankfully, no balls were hit to Dan Uggla) and Buck's big line was wasted.

Late in the game, in maybe the 12th or 13th inning, I started to wonder who was the saddest man on earth at that moment: Uggla or Bud Selig? Uggla will likely decline the invitation to next year's All Star game, if he is invited. He struck out three times and when he did hit the ball, he grounded into a double play. He left a game-high six men on base. And he committed three errors. Ouch.

But then there is Selig. In 2002 when the game was tied 7-7 in the 11th inning and Selig had to figure out what the hell they were going to do now that neither team had any pitchers left, he looked like he would rather have cut his own leg off with a plastic spoon than have to deal with that situation, live on national television, in the front row of his own home stadium. So this time he was hiding in an office somewhere.

Did Selig think that incomprehensibly making the outcome of the World Series depend on the All Star game was going to eliminate the possibility that the game could be tied late? Did they really consider that problem fixed? They didn't change anything, they just made it matter infinitely more if the exact same problem should occur again. Clearly they need to cut the tie that binds the World Series' home field advantage to this game because it is too important of a result to have it depend on fans' fickle voting, and then potentially position players pitching to close out the game.

If the All Star game is going to decide the World Series' home field advantage, the team cannot be chosen by fans, and pitchers must be prepared to go 3+ innings. If a guy pitched on Sunday and can't go more than 15 pitches in an emergency situation, he should get his All Star bonus, he should get to enjoy the festivities, but he should not be in the dugout. Get someone who can play.

If they want it to be an exhibition where the fans get to play a major role, then cut the World Series connection. The game is fun regardless of whether "this one counts." It wasn't great theater because of the World Series (exclusively). It was also great theater because it was great theater! That bottom of the 10th inning was one of the great innings in baseball history, outdone perhaps by the bottom of the 11th! And if it had come down to it, what a wonderful, fun, fan-friendly way to end such a marathon it would have been if David Wright and JD Drew had gone in to pitch, with Brad Lidge and Scott Kazmir at DH.

All Star Boos For Utley And Marmol

Josh Hamilton's spectacular show at the Home Run Derby is getting more than enough press, so I won't bother adding more praise to what he did. What I will say is that none of Hamilton's 500+ foot homers, nor his 28 jacks in the first round, nor Milton Bradley's surprisingly fun antics were my highlights. David Ortiz' self-serving look-at-me antics certainly weren't. Nor was it when the All-State big wig with the giant check called Justin Morneau, "Jason Morneau" as he congratulated him for winning. No the highlight of the night for me came before the balls started flying.

As the players' names were called in the introductions, they would run out to the baseline, turn around and wave to the crowd, with an ESPN camera right in their faces. These cameras have microphones on them to pick up whatever natural sound from the field that they can. When Phillie Chase Utley was announced, he received a pronounced round of boos from the Yankee Stadium crowd (presumably from Mets fans?). That wasn't the best part.

The best part was that when Utley got out to the baseline to join Marlin Dan Uggla, and he heard the boos. Utley turned around to wave to the crowd and said to Uggla, easily loud enough for the live camera to pick up the sound, "Boo!? Fuck you!"

Sorry about the language there, but it was spectacular television and a simple "f--- you" wouldn't have captured it well enough.

A close second, in terms of my favorite moments, was when Hamilton launched a ball to dead center that landed on the black tarp-covered seats and two fans ran out to snag the ball. The cops converged on the two and one went sprinting down the tunnel, presumably to his death. The other was caught and held by the throat with one hand by a cop on national television. When they showed the replay later, they cut before that part.

Finally, with tonight's All Star Game being only hours away, I want to mention how unbelievably stupid it is that Carlos Marmol was the final replacement on the National League team when teammate Kerry Wood dropped out with an injury. First of all, Marmol is a middle reliever and I understand that this may be the most under-appreciated position in all of sports, and that just because he is a middle reliever doesn't mean he isn't one of the best 25-30 players in the league. But the fact that his ERA is over 4.00 does mean that!

After a very nice start to the season, Marmol's ERA in June was 7.36 and in July it has been 13.50! He was named a replacement the day after he blew a 7-2 lead and was booed off the mound at home! This guy is an All Star?

Pat Burrell (who I hate) is fourth in the league in homers with 23 and leads the NL outfielders in slugging. Jose Reyes is hitting .302 with 10 homers and 43 RBI from the lead off spot, along with 68 runs scored and 32 steals! He is fourth in the NL in runs, 2nd in hits, 1st in triples, 3rd in steals, and 12th in batting average. If you want a pitcher, how about Johan Santana who has 8 wins, is 4th in the league in ERA (2.84), and 7th in K's. Or Kyle Lohse, who is third in the league in wins and his era is 3.39. Or Chad Billingsley, who has 9 wins, a 3.25 ERA and is second in the league in K's. If you want a middle reliever, how about another Dodger, Hong-Chih Kuo (who I absolutely hate), whose ERA is 1.69 and has almost 1 1/4 K's per inning pitched.

Carlos Marmol? Really? That said, he'll probably wind up being the MVP of the game.